Silence The Whisperers
by 217
Summary: Rick shouldn't have been so quick to dismiss Negan.
**If you're not caught up with the current issue, this fic is a massive spoiler, including this summary. I have this theory about Alpha, which I'm sure is completely off base, so I decided to write a short piece on it. However, if you haven't read the comic, it's not really going to make much sense. When Rick comes down into Negan's cell in issue 149, he asks Negan for help. Negan thinks he's getting out, but Rick just wants advice. This is an A/U if things were a lot different after that conversation, and how I think Alpha ties into all of this. This is from Negan's point of view.**

* * *

"Something troubling you, Prick?" I snicker at his annoyance.

Rick's weary eyes normally give nothing away. Just that stoic gaze and his unwillingness to admit his failure as a leader. "I need your help."

The cot creaks as I rise to attention. "How did those words taste?"

"Forget it."

"Bullshit. Pull your panties down and let's get on with this fuck show." I'll never understand how he keeps this façade up. Like I ain't a funny motherfucker.

"My people are demanding blood."

"This have something to do with those lunatics that run around like it's goddamn Halloween?"

"You **know** it does."

I ease back down on the cot and tell him what I know. "Our common ground, the thing we both agree on, is that as a leader you have to do **whatever it takes** to keep people safe." Whether he heeds my advice or not, I really don't give a shit.

"I think I can work with that."

"Really? This earn me anything? A day out? Walk in the park? Special meal?"

Rick ascends up the steps without a single acknowledgement.

"So that's it?! Wam-bam thank you, Negan?! I don't even get a sad eye-contactless hand job?!" I throw myself back against the wall and chuckle. Or would that technically be a hook job?

* * *

"Oh, this is fucking perfect," I jeer at Dwight. He's even more pathetic than I remember.

"They're murdering their own people."

"They seem to be pretty happy with their decision as a leader from the chants I overheard."

"But for how long? What happens when more of Rick's people are impaled?"

"Good. Faster I get the fuck out."

"We need you."

"You're interrupting jerk thirty. You know, snap one off-."

"They killed Amber, Negan." His knuckles whiten from his grip on the bars as his eyes sink. "Carson, too."

"A- Amber?" I collapse on my cot, unable to get in a full breath. The muscles in my jaw clench from grinding my teeth. I'm not saddened by this. I'm apoplectic. No one takes from me! I can't process how Rick's just going to let these depraved fucks off unscathed. Well, I won't. I fucking **refuse**.

"I can let you out."

"Like you put me in here? Fuck you, Dwight. You traitorous pig."

"You had my wife! What was I supposed to do?"

"Yeah. How **does** my dick taste?"

He releases the metal bars. "She left me."

My insult's in vain.

Just vacant eyes.

Maybe it does have an effect on him. I heave a sharp sigh of discontent.

His hand comes through the bars, not to let me out, but for something else.

My eyes widen with surprise and recognition. Lucille. I graze my fingers against her making certain she's not an apparition. My twisted perception only to become this false sense of hope, but it's not. Heh, she still clings to pieces of petrified flesh on the wire. "You gonna just sneak me out behind you, you lanky fuck? How are we doing this?"

"I have a plan."

* * *

"Nice fucking plan, dick head," I sneer at Dwight. Bullets go whizzing by my head.

"They're not shooting at you." Dwight focuses my attention on the horizon.

It's an entire goddamn horde of undead. Unlike anything I have ever seen in my life. Hundreds, **thousands**. Is there even a unit of measurement to convey what I'm seeing? "Holy dicks," I murmur. "There's too goddamn many of them!"

"I know a way around," Dwight shouts, pulling himself up on the horse.

"Are you fucking Zorro? I ain't riding side saddle with you, Nancy."

"Stay here."

"Is this a fucking joke? You spring me from jail to have me devoured by meat puppets?"

He tosses down a bag containing old clothing of mine. "Trust me," he insists, riding off.

"Lucille, you believe this shit?"

* * *

"This way." Dwight guides me as we trudge through the thick grass. "She'll be alone."

"Who?"

"Alpha. The one that slaughtered our people, and released the herd on Alexandria."

"She not wanna stay for the show?"

"Rick's people are demanding blood of a child as indemnification for the crimes Alpha committed. The child belongs to Alpha."

Yet, I've been crowned 'most **heinous** villain'.

"Rick's son-"

"Carl."

"Whatever." Dwight extends his arm outward. "Alpha's vulnerable right now, watching as Carl tries to get her daughter to safety." He raises his crossbow at the Whisperer leader.

I have always tried to instill in my men that you don't kill people you don't know. As I force the weapon back down, the bolt is released with a loud _**thukk**_ into the ground.

It catches Alpha's attention as she spins around ready to lunge at her assailant.

Before Dwight can take a menacing step forward, I violently shove him to the side.

"Negan," he grunts, cradling the arm he fell on.

Alpha, unlike before, is hesitant and her grip on the blade slackens.

The air is forced from my lungs. Do my eyes deceive me? Disbelief that makes me look twice. My first attempt to speak catches in my throat. Everything closes in on me. "Lucille?"


End file.
